


Why Him?

by indirectHonesty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, M/M, Stuck in the past, Voyeurism, angst I guess?, they are men of little words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22083403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indirectHonesty/pseuds/indirectHonesty
Summary: Lying had become second nature to him when it used to feel foreign. How did he manage to become like this? He used to be honest. Honest actions, honest words, honest feelings. Now all that honesty had lodged itself in the treacherous spikes in his throat, struggling to even see the light of day. Only in the middle of the night, when no one was around, did those words surface as Jake slid a finger down the screen of his phone, reading every single word of every single chat log he had ever had with Dirk.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas (mentioned), Jake English/Dirk Strider, John Egbert/Dirk Strider
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	Why Him?

The recent development in front of Jake English was jarring. Startling, even. In fact, this recent development wasn’t just in front of him. No, this - whatever this was - was perched next to an old flame of his, blue eyes sparkling like a thousand suns on a glassy horizon. The resemblance was disturbing, a speck on his enjoyable day thus far had turned everything sour.  
Of course, not that he should be feeling this way. And what way does he mean? Well, if someone ever took a crack at the depths of his mind, the splinters of shattered Brain Dirks and forgotten birthdays and missed opportunities of strifing metal fighters, they would see that he was feeling perturbed. There were knots in his chest, the kind that would never unravel and seemed to have a mind of their own, pulsating and tying themselves deeper into his flesh and cells, sinking into his bone and muscle. The muscle that Dirk used to graze his fingers against. Against that bloody tattoo Jake had once gotten. At least this ‘recent development’ didn’t have an inky mark anywhere on his body. Well, he had marks, of course. Just not the ones born of ink.  
Dirk had always been a bit more possessive than most people should have been. That, and he had a thing for control. Maybe that was the reason why he broke things off with Jake, because he didn’t have control anymore.  
No- that was ridiculous, even for Jake’s muddled brain. They had been doomed from the start, doomed like some of the abandoned sessions and timelines. They had both played a part in their personal game of romance, with the number of players being them. It had always been them. Right from the start. Right when their session started when it was just the four of them. Really, everything had been doomed from the start. And when had things truly gone south, save from the beginning?  
Hadn’t it been when destruction had caught up to them? Hadn’t it been when everyone except for Dirk died? When he was left to look at his own failures among the glitches of whatever John had done?  
Hadn’t it been John?  
And now Jake had to beg the question of: Why John?  
Why John Egbert of all people? Was Jake truly that oblivious and dimwitted to see the reason why, somehow, those two people had gotten together? It was on the very bottom of the ship list (Jake had asked Karkat about it, and everyone knew that Karkat - no matter how strange he could be - was the master of shipping. All four quadrants, of course). It had been unlikely. Impossible, even. But now here they were. Dirk and John. Sitting side by side while they were tag-teaming Dave and Karkat at Super Smash Bros Brawl.  
As he stood by the doorway, arms folded across his chest, he observed John and his mannerisms. Completely different from his own. Anyone could see that. Dirk could see that. But Jake had an inkling that his former lover wasn’t in it for a new sensation or a new personality to cling to.  
So Jake held up a mirror to himself and to John and searched. If John closed his eyes and wore Jake’s clothing, then they were practically alike. Almost identical. Maybe they had all made a silent promise to ignore the strange genetics between them. After all, the relationships between them all had made things more twisted and confusing. Dirk and Roxy were parents. Parents to Rose and Dave. And Jake knew for a fact that neither one of those four thought of themselves in that way. Especially Dave. Dirk was his brother for all he knew, though he still had the unfortunate displeasure of calling Roxy ‘hot’ in a Freudian slip, but those were becoming more and more uncommon with each passing day.  
Whatever silent vows everyone had made with each other, the jarring truth of the fact that Jake and John were practically identical to each other was even more silent. No one wanted to admit it, least of all Dirk. Because maybe Jake had cracked the code. Broken down a few bricks of the elusive, cold exterior that was Dirk. Because Jake used to be the one closest to him.  
He had been the one whose fingers had sunk into his bleach-blond hair, the one who had hitched his legs over the other’s lap. Whose lips had been on his first?  
The knot tied itself over once more, twice more, sinking further into the carcass he called himself.  
Snap out of it, he told himself as his fingers dug into the crooks of his elbows. Behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his left eye twitched. His green eyes.  
And maybe Jake had been a terrible communicator. But so was John. John had been the one to lock himself inside his own house for months on end on Earth C after the game. John had been the one who was a bit of an asshole at times, even more than Jake was. And there was no way that John would have talked to Dirk during those lonely months of his when he hadn’t sent a single message to his best friend, Dave. There was simply no way. There had been no way to tell that this was how everything would turn out. But at least Jake could admit his flaws and his faults now, and he realised how deep they ran a few years ago.  
Except now that he thought about it, he realised that John’s being cooped up was maybe the whole reason Dirk had approached him. They were similar in that aspect, only that the blue-eyed boy hadn’t had the brains or the genius to create AIs or robots to provide some semblance of company. The likes of Matthew McConaughey or Nicolas Cage couldn’t hold a light against the company of real, living, breathing people.  
After one of the many rounds of Super Smash, Dirk untangled John’s legs from his own (and Jake was, admittedly, surprised to see that John’s concentration had not been broken, having still be beating Dave and Karkat as Kirby. The fact that John mained Kirby was- well, it was surprising too), and left the couch. He passed by Jake and with that, he was in the perfect eye-level to see the tattoo shift as Dirk moved. And like a shadow to its original, Jake followed Dirk. He followed him into the kitchen and stood next to the counter, watching as Dirk bent down to extract a can of Red Bull from the fridge.  
Bless whoever bought those in the first place.  
Then Dirk straightened up and looked Jake directly in the eye as his fingers pulled the tab up, letting a hiss out. Well, Jake could only presume that he was looking directly at him. Those triangular shades didn’t help. Sometimes he would still dream about them. Dirk’s eyes. Brilliant and gold, true eyes of a tiger. Hungry for control and power, but now, Jake wasn’t so sure.  
“What?” Dirk asked before the can had touched his lips. “I noticed that you were looking at me.”  
“Nothing,” he lied.  
Lying had become second nature to him when it used to feel foreign. How did he manage to become like this? He used to be honest. Honest actions, honest words, honest feelings. Now all that honesty had lodged itself in the treacherous spikes in his throat, struggling to even see the light of day. Only in the middle of the night, when no one was around, did those words surface as Jake slid a finger down the screen of his phone, reading every single word of every single chat log he had ever had with Dirk. Even if he still had no clue which was Hal and which was Dirk.  
Dirk eyed him carefully, stepping closer. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”  
“What?”  
That’s right, Jake. Feign innocence. Pretend you’re as innocent as that boy he’s dating. Or is he? Maybe Dirk had already corrupted him. He had seen the way Dirk looks at him, not like he’s something to eat, but something to care for, to murmur sweet things in his ear. Maybe John was better on his knees than Jake had originally thought. Maybe he had found a way to create a loophole for that big mouth of his.  
“It’s over between us.” The can touched his lips and his head tipped back.  
Jake gripped the counter behind him, his knuckles turning white. “No, that’s - that’s not it at all. I do realise that, Dirk.”  
“Step out of the past, Jake,” Dirk said, reaching a hand behind Jake and he placed the half-empty can onto the counter.  
The proximity between the two was fine. It sent a wave of impulses up his chest and into his face, flushing his tanned skin pink. There was no way in hell that Dirk had not seen that his actions still had an effect on him.  
“Is it because he looks like me?” The words were out before he could stop them. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure that it had been him who had spoken, but it had been. It had been and there was no way to reign those hurtful words back in.  
There was a pause, and an honest to God frown marring his lips - his perfect lips. Jake gritted his teeth together, not sure that he had any chance of stopping now if the tension increased. The atmosphere between the two was sharp, muddled with gunpowder and they were both the flames. Eggshells be damned; they were walking on the thinnest sliver of ice possible.  
“No,” he eventually said, pulling away sans Red Bull can. “You look like him.”  
In a flash, Dirk left the kitchen, leaving him by himself.  
What malarkey.  
The can was still there.  
Jake turned around, his shoulders hunched. He took up the can like one of his precious blazing guns and he finished the drink. And the knot tied itself over once more.

That night, when everyone else was sleeping in the living room, Jake could hear them. Dirk and John - who else? Dave and Karkat posed no problem. After all, those two fellows had been with each other for years, a classic enemies-to-friends-to-lovers storyline. One that had a happy ending. One could hardly hold it against them for displaying public shows of affection, but they were professionals at keeping quiet and knowing when the time and place was right. Dirk and John still had no clue.  
And so Jake laid there on the couch, eyes facing the pillows and fingers curled in the blankets that kept him warm, and he listened. He listened to the high keening noises that sounded suspiciously like John’s, barely muted behind a few walls.  
He imagined what they were doing. It made him ashamed of himself, but he couldn’t help it. The taste of Dirk and Red Bull was still fresh on his lips, the image of his own reflection in those triangular shades was haunting him as he listened.  
Then he heard Dirk’s small grunts and sounds of undeniable pleasure. Nothing from John. Maybe he really was putting that mouth to good use. Better than using it to spread the holy word of bad movies, and Jake really disliked the fact that the two of them had more in common than he wanted them to.  
They both enjoyed the same movies. They both looked similar. They both had a penchant for strange and bewildering things, and both could be oblivious idiots but in different ways. And they had both managed to get Dirk’s attention.  
Jake’s hand slipped down.  
No- he shouldn’t. Not when his other two friends were sleeping so peacefully in the same room as him.  
His fingertips breached the waistline of his boxers.  
Stop it, Jake.  
There was another rolling groan that hitched in sound. It was all too familiar. The whine that accompanied it was not.  
Stop it, John, he thought. You’re ruining my fantasy of Dirk.  
He was thinking foolish things again. Still stuck in the past, just like he had been told. But was it so bad?  
Jake squeezed his eyes tightly shut as bedsprings squeaked quietly and soft gasps filled his ears.  
Maybe this timeline was more doomed than he had originally thought.  
Or maybe he was the bad guy now. The manipulator. The one who still hadn’t rid himself of his flaws.  
Maybe that was him.

And in the morning, there was another fresh bruise staining John’s skin like a watercolour.  
And Jake knew that there would be finger-shaped bruises on his hips and on his wrists and on his throat.  
And the feeling of losing something finally set in like the fog rolling through a graveyard, and just as entertaining.

**Author's Note:**

> Jake was possibly one of my least-liked human characters, especially with the Alpha kids. I don't know why I disliked his character so that one remains a mystery. And I'm always fond of DirkJohn, especially once you realise how well they can click after the events of the game because they're similar in a few ways (see: feeling like a failure of a leader, obsessing over different things, and the contrast between their personalities is refreshing as opposed to what Jake and Dirk had when they were together). Also, that whole thing when Dirk was floating in the middle of nothing brooding and grieving over his own inability to save the day and John pops in like 'hey man'.   
> I didn't mean to go on a ramble, but thank you for listening to my TED talk. Peace.


End file.
